1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of agents that implement services. More particularly, the present invention relates to a coordination platform for dynamically coordinating the implementation of independent services by agents in a communications network.
2. Background Information
A need exists to ensure independent services and agents that implement the independent services are coordinated so that a user realizes the full potential of agents and associated services available to the user. Presently, devices that support agents for processing information and communicating over a network are proliferating rapidly. However, a consumer is sometimes not able to understand the full capabilities of services supported on a networked device and, therefore, may not fully utilize the services.
Agents interact with users to provide execution of software services. Typically, an agent is a functional software module that controls a data storage memory, an instruction storage memory and a processor. The agent is associated with one or more services that perform tasks. However, agents are often designed to invoke service execution or otherwise implement stand-alone, independent, services that are not coordinated to provide an enhanced service, except when the coordination is pre-programmed as part of the service. Furthermore, agents have not previously been provided with an ability to independently coordinate services.
Accordingly, a coordination platform is needed to coordinate independent services and agents that implement the independent services. A need exists for a coordination platform that discovers and registers the services. A coordination platform is needed to dynamically coordinate execution of the services according to parameter information of the services. A coordination platform is needed to allow services that are independently developed to be coordinated using agent coordination logic. A coordination platform is needed to aggregate the benefits obtained from the implementation of multiple independent services.
To solve the above-described problems, a coordination platform is provided for dynamically coordinating the execution of multiple services by agents.